Wednesday, 9 May 2012

HTML5:- Mystery De-coded - WackyWhatever?

HTML5-Mystery De-coded.

The buzz-word, you may have heard off the tips of knowledgable tongues is the new Internet W3's "HTML5" standard - So what? I hear you say, it has been around for a while, and I haven't seen many changes......

That might be true, if you are not involved in programming, or are only a casual Internet surfer. However you, yes "You", Average Joe, are about to experience a few new, and possibly disconcerting, things if you don't understand what they are and how they work???

So, in order to clear-up a few mis-understandings you might end up with, here is a list of things you should know :-

The pop up dialog (Seen particularly on mobile sites) requesting permission to access your location:-
No this is not big brother, and they are very unlikely to be keeping a list to find you with.
The HTML5 navigation.geolocation spec is a browser method to allow fast and accurate information that you might be interested in based on your location eg:-Restaurants in your area. It is not something to be afraid of and only really works well on GPS enabled phones.

If you are a Gmail user you might have seen the pop-up requesting permission to use your local storage to store messages. This is a direct, and new, benefit of HTML5, which allows you to store your own data in your own browser, rather than on a third party server. The benefits by way of safety, and privacy are obvious, and yes you can delete any data that you feel is taking up too much space at any time.

If you play Computer Games, or use web-based soft-ware you may be asked permission by the application to Cache data:- This simply means that "Heavy" media, such as images, audio or video will use your hard drive for storage making the application easier and faster to use. You may clear your cache at any time.

HTML5 together with its favored partner JavaScript are going to make using downloaded. Software much easier. In the past you would often need to download extra third party software to get applications to work, which made the whole process complicated and used a lot of room on your computer, besides only certain computers being able to serve the platform required. Now a much more standard platform, which will be supported by all operating systems is slowly coming into force, and you will not need extra "helpers" like Flash, or Java to make:- for instance simple drawing software functional.

There is a lot more to it, but now a few mysteries should be de-coded for you.